Linda's Blog

Well, I'm still debating whether or not to put in a sheer ribbon border around the outside, but at least it's quilted! I'm pretty happy with it, when all's said and done, and have entered it into the Quilts of Whimsy challenge at the Page-Walker Museum.

Now I get to start my entry for the Porsche Parade Art Show - well, after I pack for a gig in Southern California, and take a quilting class on Saturday, I should be able to start.

So, here's the Natural Bridges quilt ready to be quilted. I added seagulls out over the sea, more on the rock, along with a lone pelican, added more waves under the arch, a flower to the little girl's hair, and make sure it was all laying as flat as possible.

Since Natural Bridges is well known as a hangout for butterflies, I put a flight of them on the back. Yes, I know; these aren't Monarchs, but beggars can't be choosers, eh?

So, I began by puff painting the Arch. I painted it with white puff paint, then let that dry, puffed it up, and painted it with Setacolor transparent paint.

separately, I painted the sky, then water for waves in the distance, land in the distance, and reflections in the close-up water.

Then I puff painted fabric to make sand, dribbled sand and glitter in it, waited until it dried, puffed it up, and painted it. The white place is where the little girl goes - no sense in putting puff paint under her!

Just so I would know where to put the sheer fabrics, and to give them a whie background, I painted on the waves with Titanium White paint and a little perle.

Here, i've added sheer fabrics heated with theat gun and cut with a woodburning tool to give the wave dimension, and also used puff paint and metallic white paint to add the seafoam floating on the water in front of the wave. While it was still wet, I added tiny micropearls to the paint, for bubbles.

Here, I've added shading onder the rock arch, painted, heated lutradur to the tops of the foaming wae, and melted painted cellophane to the leading edge of the water.

I'm off to paint the little girl now. Usually, I do the hardest part (people, animals, etc.) first to be sure I can do it, but I did it backwards this time. Oh, well......

Hi! My Waves and Waterfalls class is opening on February 21st at www.academyofquilting.com, so just thought I'd put a waterfall up, even though that one is all done, already.

What I'm really working on is a composite of three different photographs taken at the beach 3 weeks ago (Yes, it was 80 degrees at Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz, then!). There was a darling little girl playing in the sand, buried up to her waist in it.

The sky was blue, the sea was crashing up onto the rocks of the arch, and people were having a great time just hanging out.

There was even a lovely butterfly kite flying - just too great!

So, putting them all together, here's the scene I'm working on. The kite will be a bit smaller, the girl's eyes won't be so distinct, and I've changed the beach bag to a pail and shovel.

So far, I've painted the sky, Puff Painted and painted the arch, made and painted the sand, and am working on the ocean.

Happy New Year! I'm starting a new adventure this year, since QuiltUniversity.com is no more; I'm now doing my online teaching at www.AcademyofQuilting.com, and have been busy editing classes and making some new short videos to put in the classes. So, far, this is the schedule:

Below this blog is a picture of one of the projects in the Waves and Waterfalls class (the orange tree with dark background), and here is the project for the Winter Wonderland class. Start your new year right by learning something fun and new!

Well, it turns out my brother, John, is the person I have for our family gift exchange. He said he wanted a wallhanging made of an old picture of him on a rock, any size, for his present. Sheesh! these presents are supposed to be a maximum of $20! What does he think I am, a photographer? Maybe a photographer would charge $20, a quilter would charge at least $200, right? Anyway, he is my brother, so I did check out the photo (see left). The figure is fairly clear, and I think the background is woodsy, but since the whole thing is in sepia tones, I have no idea what season it is. By the way, he looks pretty good there, eh? Too bad he's put on some weight since then.

So, anyway, I did a tracing of the picture, about 10" x 8" on mylar tracing paper, one side frosted.

Then I blew that up to 17" x 22" on my computer, and printed that out.

So, the next step is to paint John's face, hands, and arms. If they look like a recognizable human being, then I'll finish the quilt. If not, not. So, you still don't know if you're getting a sweatshirt or a quilt, eh, John?

So, I started by making a sketch about 10" x 8" on mylar one side frosted tracing paper. Then I took that to my computer, scanned it in, and printed it out about double the original size, and taped that back together (as I was too lazy to go to the copy shop.

This is the big copy, which oddly enough, looks just like the small one, but bigger. Fancy that!

So, I traced the component parts that needed to be painted onto Prepared For Dyeing (PFD) fabric, and painted the face, the shirt, the paints on wone, the arm and camera on another piece, then made puff painted rocks with glitter and sand dribbled onto them.

Then, I fussy cut the background printed trees, fused the top edges down to a piece of muslin, added the rocks, the figure, then invisibly appliqued it all down. You can see the almost finished top in the top right corner of this blog. Hopefully, I will get it quilted tomorrow, and send it on its way to Minnesota very, very soon. Got to run to instrument practice now, so hope you all have a very good evening!

Here are the rocks, after being puffed and painted. Then I waited for them to dry and cut them out.

How exciting! Some of the now defunct QuiltUniversity.com classes have been taken over by www.AcademyOfQuilting.com, so my classes are going to appear there, starting January 1. I have been fairly busy editing the classes, and learning how to take a video on my movie camera, get it off the movie camera into my computer, then load it onto UTube (for some reason, my Mac won't accept the video off my video camera, even though it CLEARLY states on the camera box that it will), then opening it in MacTube on my Mac, converting the files to MP4, then e-mailing them to myself so I can drop them in the AcademyofQuilting.com dropbox, because no sane e-mail program will put up with the size of the files. My head hurts.

The photo at the left is a project included in one of the classes. It's also the sample for my Creating With Cool Stuff class that is a very exciting way to get started with Art Quilts because it is actually an art quilt sampler. In making it, you get familiar with using MistyFuse, metallic paint powders, Lutradur, fabric paints, Puff Paint, Tyvek, melted painted cellophane and distorted sheer fabrics to create the chaos that is rushing water. Oh, I forgot Glitter Glue and sheer ribbon borders and iridescent cracked ice. All in one day, and everybody goes home with the project all pinned (or fused) down, and you don't even have to bring a machine to class!

So, it just wouldn't be Christmas without making SOMETHING homemade, would it? Here are two of the five scarves I dyed for presents; the other three are lavender, pink, and green, but by the time I thought about photographing them, the others were already wrapped up and hidden away (sort of, they're in with the four giant black garbage bags all wrapped up and hidden (?) in my sewing room, where nobody else goes on pain of stepping on pins, cutting themselves on rotary cutters, or getting bombarded with stuff sliding off the too-full shelves.)

I bought these white silk devore scarves, already hemmed and fringed, at Dharma Trading last year, for the outrageous price of $7.99 each. I used my Jacquard silk dyes to dye them, and I think they turned out rather well, eh?

Speaking of Christmas, I spent all of yesterday (Friday the 20th) Christmas shopping. All day. Sheer torture for a Minnesotan because I HATE to spend money; fortunately, once I get the credit card out of my wallet, it's okay and I just keep it going until the credit card company wises up and cuts me off. Luckily, I have more than one credit card.

THEN, I went home and wrapped it all up (having had the smarts to stop at the Dollar Store and get gift wrapping and tags and ribbons and stuff), so now it's DONE and nobody is talking me into going out into that madhouse again.

By the way, I just posted a few Christmas poems I have written under the Essays tab, just for fun!

So, it's done; it's a wrap, and I only had to cut his head off once, instead of my usual 4 times or so. It even looks like him! The background is all printed, fussy cut fabric, so that was easy; John is painted and invisibly machine and hand appliqued. The rocks are Puff Paint, heated up and painted. The border is a batik, which shouldn't have gone with it, but somehow does.

So, now that that's done, I have absolutely no excuse for not Christmas shopping, except for the rather lamentable fact that I have NO IDEA what I'm shopping for. We (my DH and I) even went to the Mall today (and found parking, which was remarkable in and of itself), and only managed to spend the gift cards my husband had from his boss; by then, we were exhausted, went home, got a glass of wine and contemplated the lovely, 60 degree weather in California, while my relatives are slogging it out at minus 2 in Minnesota. I think I'll go back and clean up the Studio, so if and when the spirit moves me, I'll be able to find my scissors again.

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There is vitality, a life-force, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through another medium. It will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is…It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. - Martha Graham

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." - Mother Theresa

"When the eye, the hand, and the heart come together, that's when you get the greatest art." - David Hockney